Though my story was accurate in the words he used — specifically “lie” and “lying” — Lambert said he meant to convey that he didn’t believe information he was told. That doesn’t mean he didn’t trust deputy DHS executive director Nikki Hatch, who conveyed information about staffing to the Regional Center Task Force.

“I don’t think she just made it up,” Lambert said Tuesday afternoon, after he had called Hatch to apologize. “But I do question the information she was given.”

Colorado budget writers on Tuesday rejected a $5 million program tucked into the state budget bill that provides birth control to women in need, excluding it from a compromise deal on the $25 billion spending plan.

The conference committee negotiating the differences between the House and Senate budget bills split 3-3 along party lines on the provision to add money for the long-acting reversible contraception program. Each item needs a majority vote to win approval and the final compromise needs the consent of two members of each chamber.

“This program reduces the abortion and pregnancy rates of low-income women, and by preventing an unintended pregnancy we allow Colorado women and Colorado families to make important decisions about when to start a family,” said Rep. Millie Hamner, a Dillon Democrat, who pushed to include it in the final plan.

Ahead of the negotiations, Senate Republicans made it clear they opposed the contraception program and considered the House amendment to the budget bill a poison pill. The three GOP members — Sens. Kent Lambert and Kevin Grantham and Rep. Bob Rankin — voted against putting it in the final compromise plan without discussion.

UPDATED: In a flurry, state budget writers sliced and diced the roughly $26 billion spending plan to bring it into balance Monday — the final step before the “long bill” lands later this week.

The Joint Budget Committee expects to introduce the bill in the Senate on Friday, meaning the first votes would come in the middle of next week.

But first, the budget writers had to find about $125 million to balance the bill — prompting a series of motions to pull money from other sources and cut major programs.

The initial $75 million set aside in the general fund account to lower the state’s debt to school districts — the so-called “negative factor” under Amendment 23 — was cut to $25 million, far less than Democrats and Republican had requested. Gov. John Hickenlooper asked for a one-time $200 million reduction.

Rep. Millie Hamner, D-Dillon, called her move to trim the total “the most unfavorable motion” in her career. “We don’t have the money to make that commitment today,” she said of the original $75 million.

The Joint Budget Committee on Thursday unanimously decided to deny a CBI request to spend $408,000 from permit fees in next year’s budget, which would have allowed the agency to hire eight staffers and reduce the wait times for processing the concealed carry permits.

The reason behind the vote is distrust of the administration’s data about the program.

UPDATED: Colorado legislative budget writers scuttled a request from Gov. John Hickenlooper’s administration to add $30 million to a college scholarship fund, saying it has failed to meet expectations.

A Democratic-led legislature created the College Opportunity Scholarship Initiative in 2014 as a public-private partnership to provide money for talented low-income students to attend higher education. It put $34 million to the effort in the first year.

But so far, the initiative has attracted little private matching money — just a $1 million commitment over the next 10 years from the Colorado Quarterly Forum. The fund currently has about $30 million after making roughly $3.4 million, according to legislative analysts.

Hickenlooper made it a priority of his budget plan to put another $30 million in the fund to “instill additional confidence in the state’s commitment to this program” and “leverage tens of millions” from private donors. He repeated his ask to lawmakers in his State of the State address.

A prolonged dispute between Gov. John Hickenlooper’s administration and state budget writers on staffing concerns at youth prisons is clearing.

The clash involved 53 guards the Division of Youth Corrections hired in late 2014 without telling the state lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee.

The hiring came as the committee was considering whether to give the agency money to pay the guards and highlighted a lack of communication between the administration and lawmakers. It led the budget writers to reject the request and not include the money in the supplemental funding bill for this budget year.

But Thursday, budget writers revisited the decision and added $729,000 to the next fiscal year’s budget to cover the newly hired guards. The back-fill money will cover the 53 hires the department made to help address security concerns amid a rise in assaults at detention facilities.

Majority Leader Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Boulder, in her new leather chair in the House chamber.

Gov. John Hickenlooper issued an election-eve budget plan that supported taxpayer refunds next year, but his Democratic colleagues in the legislature are openly considering a move to spend the money.

The talk comes as the Joint Budget Committee continues preliminary meetings to craft the state budget and raises the specter of an intraparty showdown on one of the top legislative issues in the upcoming 2015 session.

Under the state’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, Colorado must return any tax collections in excess of its constitutional revenue cap, which is set by the rate of inflation plus population growth. Right now, the state forecasts a potential $130 million refund.

In a recent interview, noted in a story looking at Hickenlooper’s second term, incoming House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst made the most direct suggestion that Democrats may support a ballot measure in 2015 to ask voters to keep the money for state spending instead of issuing a refund

“If we don’t do anything as a state, we are going to be spending almost as much money as we refund, refunding money to people, which doesn’t seem to make a lot of common sense to me,” the Boulder Democrat said. “The people would be far better off if we invested that in infrastructure, education — something that really benefited them rather than (them) getting their 50 bucks to spend on a tank of gas or something.”

Rep. Jenise May, an Adams county Democrat, lost her re-election bid. (Lynn Bartels, The Denver Post)

Adams County made official today what Colorado House Democrats have known in their heavy hearts for a while: Rep. Jenise May won’t be returning in January.

A week ago, May was down by 110 votes to Republican JoAnn Windholz in House District 30. Neither May nor Windholz participated in their caucus leadership elections while they waited for the Adams County clerk’s office to call voters who forgot to sign their ballots, or whose signature on the ballot didn’t match the signature on file and such. May learned today that the “curing” process was over. She lost by 106 votes instead of 110 votes.

JoAnn Windholz (House GOP caucus)

As a result, Speaker-designee Dickey Lee Hullinghorst of Boulder now must pick two members to serve on the powerful Joint Budget Committee. Both House Democrats on the JBC are gone: May lost her election and JBC chair Crisanta Duran was just elected as the House majority leader.

“I’ll continue on the JBC for a few more days until they replace me and then I’ll help my replacement transition,” May said

“It was an experience,” May said, of her legislative experience, which officially ends Jan. 7. “I did a lot of things for my community that I’m proud of.”

Gessler blasted Democrats in a news release sent from his office. The release claims that during a discussion on whether Gessler should come talk to the committee in person, Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, uninvited the secretary, and then uttered some swine snark:

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.